The Chameleon Factor Read online

  The next room was really an antechamber, with a thick Plexiglas wall restricting access. Behind the transparent barrier were rows of computer and monitoring stations staffed by grimly silent Japanese men and women. The far wall was a large plasma-screen display of the world showing the current weather patterns across all of the major continents and oceans. Cryptic symbols scrolled along the bottom of the screen, and as he watched the weather map faded away to be replaced by detailed maps of four large cities. The roads and buildings may have been recognizable to somebody from the locations, but to Harrison they were merely random patterns. At least, none of them were downtown London.

  Standing in front of the display was a slim man with ebony hair and wearing an extraordinarily good suit. His hands were clasped behind his back, with a gold Rolex watch on the left wrist, and a blue tattoo on the back of the right hand, three interlocking circles.

  As the man turned, he spoke to one of the people at a computer station. There came a subdued click, and the Plexiglas barrier rose into the ceiling with the soft sigh of working hydraulics.

  “Good evening, Major Fukoka,” Harrison said, giving the polite half bow of equal partners in a business deal who weren’t close friends.

  The heavily scarred terrorist frowned at the precise gesture of courtesy and reluctantly returned it.

  “Good evening, Mr. Harrison,” the major said in polished tones. “I trust your journey was uneventful.”

  “It was successful, which is much more important,” Harrison said, pushing back a lock of hair moved onto his face from the constant warm breeze blowing from the air vents. Time to go on the offensive and show his strength.

  “Although, I must admit that I am curious as to how you managed to transport nuclear warheads here for your missiles,” Harrison added, tilting his head. “This close to the big three, I wouldn’t have thought such a thing impossible.” The big three in that part of the world meant Japan, China and Russia. Korea was a poor nation without much in its favor but raw hatred and stolen technology.

  Frowning slightly, Fukoka studied the other man for a moment before answering.

  “You are correct, it is impossible,” the major replied, looking over a shoulder at the computerized wall map. “The North Americans with their Keyhole and Watchdog satellites closely monitor all suspicious radiation. So we have gone a different route.”

  Politely, Harrison waited for the director to continue, but Fukoka merely watched him back. The Briton sensed a test of some sort again. Damn Japanese were always playing brinkmanship. Hmm, if the missiles weren’t armed with nukes, what else was there? Germ warfare was too easily controlled. Conventional explosives would do pitiful damage without pinpoint accuracy, which would be impossible without radar guidance. And the destructive power of a dirty bomb was minimal.

  “So you have them,” Harrison said, crossing his arms. “A gas-vapor bomb.”

  “The proper designation is FAE, a fuel-air explosive,” Fukoka corrected. “But, yes, you have guessed correctly. We have them in abundance. The U.S. Marines used the devices extensively in Vietnam to clear away the jungle and make instant landing bases for their gunship helicopters. Hundreds were recovered during the Tet Offensive, and we acquired most of them. Since then, our people have been steadily developing them to new levels of power and efficiency.”

  “Efficiency is the key.”

  “That is correct.”

  As no further information on the subject was coming, Harrison changed topics. “So those are your targets,” he said carefully. “Interesting choices.”

  “Obvious ones,” Fukoka said, arching an eyebrow. “Can you identify the cities?”

  Another test? Maybe. Or more likely a test of his stupidity. “No,” he said honestly. “I cannot.”

  “Good, then you live,” the major said casually.

  Walking across the bunker, Fukoka went to a wall safe, opened the steel door and extracted a small leather case.

  “Dr. Tetsuto?” the major said loudly, closing the safe and twirling the dial.

  There was a crackle of static from the ceiling. “Yes, Major Fukoka?”

  “Is the merchandise legitimate?”

  “Merchandise? Oh, the unit. Yes, yes, the unit is just as promised. My staff is duplicating it right now. We should be done in an hour.”

  “One hour?”

  “It is all off-the-shelf technology,” Dr. Tetsuto explained, exhaling noisily. “Only the configuration is unique. Brilliant, actually.” There was a pause as there came the sound of crinkling plastic wrap, followed by the striking of a match.

  “Do you wish to observe?” Tetsuto said, puffing.

  “Yes, but time does not permit,” Fukoka replied, looking at Harrison standing across the room. “Please continue with your work, Doctor.”

  “Of course.” There was a crackle as the speaker in the ceiling was turned off.

  Crossing the control room, the major passed the case to Harrison, who accepted it with a quarter bow of respect between friends. This gesture, Fukoka insultingly didn’t return.

  “You may leave now,” Fukoka said. “Since you have kept your part of the deal, I shall keep mine.”

  “Domo. Perhaps we can do business again some time.” Harrison smiled, savoring the deliciously heavy feel of the bag. He wanted desperately to look inside, but that would have been a deadly insult to the Japanese. They may be terrorists, but they still carried the onus of their rigid society.

  “That possibility is why you are still alive,” Fukoka replied curtly. “My distaste for spies is intense.” He turned away. “Guards!”

  Both of the armed men gave crisp salutes. “Sir!”

  “Escort our guest to the western tunnel. See him safely off the island, and then monitor his journey to make sure he does not try to come back.”

  As the guards started the process of opening the blast-proof door, Harrison felt his face burn red with the accusation, but controlled his temper. Tests, the damn Japanese were always testing your resolve, your intelligence, your control…. Bah, the Americans were much easier to deal with. They paid in cash and asked only a speedy delivery. Fukoka would go insane when he learned of the sale to Cascade. How very pleasant. Harrison hid a smile from his face.

  “It was a pleasure doing business with you, Major,” Harrison said, walking out of the room without looking back.

  Major Fukoka raised an eyebrow at the gesture, and started to reach for the .40 Magnum Fabrique National inside his suit, but stayed his hand. Now wasn’t the time or the place. Later he would deal with the offensive little Briton at a more private location.

  As the armored door boomed shut and locked, the major walked back to the wall display and waited. Now the cryptic symbols scrolling along the bottom melted into proper Japanese showing the target zones: Beijing, Moscow, London, Washington, D.C.

  It was a pity that all four of the missiles would have to be launched at the same time to disguise their firing as a volcanic eruption on Matua. Moscow would be hit first and then the hated Chinese. Unfortunately, because of the sheer distance to be traveled, the British capital would be warned by then, and if wise heads prevailed they might just gain that extra time to evacuate some of their parliament before the Chameleon-masked ICBM detonated above the city.

  Yet, if only one missile got through to its target, that would justify the enormous expense of the entire project. The estimated death toll for Moscow alone was a million, for Beijing, two times that number. London twice that, and Washington the same.

  Fukoka smiled at the thought. And that would only herald the beginning of the destruction. Afterward, the real firestorm would commence. With their capitals destroyed, the superpowers would turn on one another, and in the aftermath Japan alone would remain as undamaged and mighty. The plan couldn’t fail.

  He only hoped that the spy was on his way to one of the targets. Glancing at the clock on the wall, the terrorist leader frowned darkly. Ah, there wasn’t enough time for him to even reach Tokyo, mu
ch less Beijing or Moscow. Pity. There wasn’t much time remaining before the missiles launched and the rulers of the old world would perish in the fiery weapons of their own foolish creation!

  Nothing could wrong now, Fukoka thought, chuckling inside. Only forty-five minutes remained until the end of the world.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Illinois

  As Able Team drove past a rusting sign that marked the boundary for Gary, Blancanales shook his head in embarrassment.

  “Christ,” he muttered. “And this was once the jewel of Illinois.”

  “Really? Well, I’m having flashbacks to Beirut,” Schwarz said, looking sadly out the side window of the Cadillac.

  Dodging potholes with the sure ease of a big-city dweller, Lyons merely grunted in agreement. How the mighty of commerce had fallen. Forty years ago, Gary, Indiana, had become famous because of a Broadway tune singing its praises back in 1905. But the city crossed the state line, and there was Gary, Illinois, and nobody sang the praise of either city anymore. Fifty years ago it would have been called a ghetto, twenty years ago, a slum. The new politically correct term was “brownscape.” But giving it a fancy name didn’t remove the stink of the hopeless or the reek of poverty.

  Once the home for countless factories pouring out the wealth of the Midwest, the ruins of Gary now spread across the landscape like a pus-oozing sore on the face of a beautiful woman. The crumbling city was hated and forgotten. But not useless. It was the perfect hiding ground for the Republican Army of Cascade.

  Occasionally checking the street map shown on the glowing personal computer on the nearby seat, Lyons drove the rented Cadillac quickly through downtown Gary. Nobody on the sidewalks or in the few other cars on the street seemed to be paying the brand-new Cadillac any attention whatsoever.

  “Told you it would work,” Blancanales boasted. “Camouflage comes in a lot of different manners.”

  “I guess so,” Lyons acknowledged.

  Before entering Gary, the team had stopped at a strip mall. First and foremost, they bought some old clothing at a Goodwill store. What they were wearing would pass unnoticed at O’Hare, but would mark them as narcs in Gary. Now properly attired in old shirts and denim work pants, they bought supplies at a small hardware store. Then driving behind the mall for some privacy, they got to work on the Cadillac. While Schwarz bent the radio antenna, smashed a headlight, dented the body and kicked off the hubcaps, Blancanales splashed orange primer randomly onto the gleaming Cadillac, and Lyons liberally applied strips of duct tape here and there. After about ten minutes, their rented Cadillac looked as if it were twenty years old and falling apart from rust, even though it was in perfect mechanical shape.

  Back on the streets, the junked car melded with the rest of the sparse traffic.

  Endless blocks of crumbling buildings, polluted water, fallen masonry, weeds, rust and decay spread outward in every direction. The air was redolent and thick with chemicals from the refineries, a reeking miasma of dying machinery. Rusting water towers dotted the ghetto, the metal support girders starting to bend as if they were kneeling down to feed like beasts upon the carrion of the dead city below.

  “Beirut is beginning to look pretty good,” Blancanales said softly, running a hand through his hair.

  Tucking his portable radio into a cushioned holster under his denim jacket, Schwarz froze and adjusted the controls. “Roger, confirmed,” he reported into his throat mike.

  “What?” Lyons asked.

  “David found Davis Harrison in the Kuril Islands,” Schwarz said, touching the radio in his ear. “The buy has already gone down.”

  Slowing for a stop sign, Lyons noticed that nobody else was pausing, so he kept the Cadillac moving. “Which means Harrison can call Woods at any moment to sell them the duplicate plans,” he concluded, going around an abandoned car left in the middle of the street.

  “That would almost definitely tip off Woods that the thing at the airport was a trick to reveal his whereabouts, and he’ll vanish,” Blancanales added, frowning.

  “Without the plans for the Chameleon?” Schwarz retorted. “No way.”

  “Way,” Blancanales replied without humor. “Believe me, he’ll run, fast and far.”

  “Gadgets, ask Bear to monitor the phone lines for an incoming call from the Pacific Rim,” Lyons ordered. “If Harrison calls, kill the local phone service.”

  “No good, Carl. He might be using a cell phone,” Schwarz explained, “and routing the call through Australia, France, New Jersey, anywhere he wants to. It’s impossible for even Bear and his team to check the entire world.”

  “And if the phones die now, Cascade will know we’re wise, and run. Then merely contact Harrison later and get the plans then.”

  “I was hoping this was almost over, and now it’s just starting again,” Lyons said, hitting the accelerator. “Okay, then, we have no choice. We find the headquarters for Cascade, get inside and capture Woods alive so that we’ll be on the other end of that phone call.”

  “Then we clean house,” Blancanales said, “and put Cascade out of business for good.”

  “Better stay sharp,” Schwarz warned, working the bolt on his own M-16/M-203. “Woods has millions to spare, so Cascade is going to be well armed with everything money can buy. And that’s a lot.”

  “But not everything,” Blancanales added, spotting an American flag fluttering from the top of a pole above a small post office that resembled a fortified bunker. There was barbed wire coiling along the edge of the roof, and the windows were covered with plywood, but a sign on the front door said it was open for business, and there was a line of people inside holding packages. “Some things aren’t for sale.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Braking at a red light, Lyons noticed the teenager coming toward the Cadillac. The kid’s satin jacket was flapping open, and the checkered grip of an automatic pistol was jutting from his wide leather belt.

  “Get out of the car!” the kid snarled, pulling out a Glock 17 pistol. “And give me your… Oh, shit!”

  The cry came as Able Team swung a collection of M-16/M-203 assault rifle combos toward the teenager. At the sight, he dropped the Glock and raised both trembling hands.

  “Joking, man.” He attempted a grin. “Hey, it was only a joke, like, ya know?”

  Accelerating slowly, Lyons left the would-be carjacker behind. As the Cadillac started to take a corner, the kid grabbed the fallen Glock and began to run for his life.

  “Think he was a member of Cascade?” Schwarz asked with a straight face.

  “Knowing their idiot philosophy about life,” Lyons said, returning his attention to the road, “that could have been Woods himself.”

  Now the buildings grew in size and height, some of them covering an entire block. Chain-link fences lined most blocks, some intact and others sagging to the ground. Graffiti-covered concrete rails blocked the sidewalks and driveways of hulking factories, empty steel mills and burned-out warehouses. A scattering of homeless people meandered about, pushing shopping carts full of items ripped from the crumbling buildings: copper pipes, light switches, anything that might bring a dollar from the junk dealers and scrap yards. Several buildings were sealed off behind EPA violation stickers, and not even the swaggering street gangs dared to cross those dire warnings and risk early death from toxic-waste poisoning.

  “This is it,” Blancanales said, checking the personal computer in his palm. “The phone that the guy at the airport called was from this area.”

  Both sides of the street were lined with a complex of brick buildings bridged together above the street by conveyor belts, raised walkways and pipes of a hundred different sizes coming and going in controlled chaos. Weeds grew everywhere on the ground, the cracked asphalt rising and buckling from the harsh Illinois winters and no repair work.

  “Do we know which building?” Lyons asked, reducing speed to a crawl as if looking for a parking spot.

  “Hell, no. Officially, the building doesn’
t even exist, much less have services.”

  The Able Team leader grunted at that. “Good. Now all we need is a soft entry inside,” he reminded, feeling the pressure of time. “Blowing down the front door is our court of last appeal.”

  The cracked sidewalks were closed off with wire fencing, but the curbs were empty. However, broken glass was everywhere, the tiny green cubes of automobile safety glass mixing with the brown shards of busted beer bottles. Potholes gaped in the ground like blast craters, one with a small oak tree growing from the windblown dirt accumulated at the bottom.

  Yellow newspapers, corroded beer cans, cardboard fast-food containers and general detritus abounded. The front stoop of one building had a slope of green glass, covering the front steps. Weathered and peeling, the door was badly battered with holes at the bottom too small for even a child, but perfect for rats. Near a swaying guard kiosk, a dead dog was being pecked at by crows, and a man in stained and tattered clothes shuffled along in the street.

  Two blocks down the street, a blond woman lifted her skirt at a slowly passing car. The grinning driver pulled to the corner, and the busty whore bent in through the passenger-side window to talk to the occupants and give Able Team an impromptu view of her dubious charms. A deal was obvious made, because she climbed into the car, the driver already loosening his seat belt.

  Looking carefully at the ground underneath the fencing, Blancanales couldn’t find any sign of rust flakes. Yet the wire fence was streaked with patches of dull red. “They either vacuum the sidewalk at night, or else that rust is fake,” he said.

  “Primer looks a lot like rust,” Schwarz added thoughtfully, pulling out an EM scanner from the canvas bag at his side.

  “No active scans,” Lyons warned. “They might have detectors, passive scan only.”

  “Check,” Schwarz said, tucking away the scanner.

  Driving around a corner, Lyons braked to a halt and tried to get a feel for the area, but he was coming up with nothing. The Stony Man commando knew the terrorist group Cascade was hidden among the abandoned structures, but where? Could the trace have been wrong? Kurtzman was only human, and mistakes did happen.